


Ties That Bind

by iohannes (amare)



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Tetralogy - Thomas Harris
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Post-Series, Revenge, Scars, Trauma, WIP Amnesty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-27
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-17 05:00:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1374733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amare/pseuds/iohannes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Lecter eludes his best men in Florence, Mason Verger takes his problem to a scarred and embittered Will Graham.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is heavily influenced by the novel "Hannibal." In many ways it's my attempt to adapt the book to Fuller's canon, presuming he never gets the rights to Clarice Starling and gives Will Graham a (subjectively) better end than the one he received in the books. I love Clarice, but I think in the Fullerverse Will makes a decent proxy for her, and on top of that, sparing her from the fate Thomas Harris wrote was an appealing prospect. There shouldn't be issues for those who haven't read the books, I don't think, but fans will notice my homage in a heartbeat. 
> 
> Necessarily the timeline here is a little wonky. For my purposes, "Red Dragon" happens circa season four, "The Silence of the Lambs"-sans Clarice circa season six, and "Hannibal" in some weird, amorphous era a few years after that. I started the story in early season two, well before we ever saw Mason and Margot on screen. 
> 
> Thanks to [TheLCM](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLCM/profile) for being as enthusiastic about the Harris canon as I am, for helping me finagle the plot in many thoughtful emails, and for generally being swell. More thanks go to [Randstad](http://archiveofourown.org/users/randstad), [its in the water](http://archiveofourown.org/users/its_in_the_water), and what I'm sure will be an even bigger crew as this thing evolves.

In the days after Jack Crawford’s death, Will was sent two letters. The first was FedExed from a Chicago address, and Will tore into it on his front porch, the tab of cardboard from the envelope landing by his feet.  
  
Alana Bloom's handwriting was very legible, for a psychiatrist. She sent her regards on letterhead and broke the bad news. _Heart attack, and it looks like he passed in his sleep._ The brevity of the letter betrayed how long and hard she labored to craft it, as did as her tidy upper loops that slanted far to the right.  
  
She made no mention of the havoc Hannibal Lecter wreaked in Florence only a week earlier.  
  
 _I hope this finds you well._ The Florida morning light was orange and blinding, even from the shade of the porch. Will thought about bringing the letter to his nose, but he knew he would smell ink from Alana's pen and the sharpness of paper. No hint of her to chase. _I won't push, but I'll save a seat for you at the funeral._ Will checked the date. The funeral was in three days.  
  
He went back inside, tapping the edge of the paper against his thigh. One of the dogs wandered out when Will opened the door for the FedEx delivery, and he abandoned his stick and obeyed at the sound of Will's distracted whistle.  
  
The second letter was intercepted before it ever reached Will's mailbox, forwarded to the Verger farm in Maryland, and examined by staff with the same level of forensic scrutiny they used for all correspondence from Lecter. They found a tiny smudge on the lower corner that turned out to be oil from his skin and a partial print from a left index finger that was good enough for confirmation but wouldn't hold up in a court of law it would never see.  
  
Mason Verger's heart rate increased when Cordell projected the letter's contents onto a large holographic screen above his bed. The amount of enlargement required for Mason's easy reading made each individual word the size of someone's palm.  
  
 _My dear Will,_  
  
 _My sincere condolences. In the coming weeks, the clarity of anger and abandonment will serve you better than the rose tint of earlier memories. Your real father seemed only a little elevated in your regard, left behind to rot in Louisiana. Grant Uncle Jack the same lack of nostalgia._  
  
 _I will not call on you, Will, so there is no need to use me as motivation to crawl deeper into your chosen bottle. I would have you honored for the man you were, not what you have become. When there is occasion, please return the courtesy and reject any offers to root me out that interested parties may extend._  
  
 _Jack's death preempts another anniversary. How is the former Mrs. Graham? I heard you kept the beach house in the divorce. That was very kind of Molly. I imagine you reading this with the tide swirling around your ankles, but likely you are inside and surrounded by the newest iteration of your pack. Do this one thing: test the water. Not for me—for you, and for your dogs. Only the seagulls will bear witness, and they do not have standards of vanity, nor will they mind the smell._  
  
 _Yours,_  
 _H. Lecter, MD_  
  
"Cordell," Mason called some five minutes after he'd read the letter. Mason's lipless mouth seemed open in a perpetual grimace, and forcing words past it took a certain undulation of his tongue that mimicked the motions of his eel in its tank, curving and fluttering between rocks.  
  
Cordell appeared at his bedside. "The plane can be in Florida by six-thirty."  
  
They both had to wait through the hiss and clack of Mason's respirator as it filled his lungs. "Do I look like I need a _tan_?" he mocked. "Or have you forgotten how to read?" Lecter's subtle warning to Graham about offers would have made Mason smile were he able to.  
  
"No, Mr. Verger. I see."  
  
Mason minimized the letter so it was only on half the screen; his eyes tracked market changes and talking heads on a D.C. news program, but they kept drifting back to the even copperplate of Lecter's handwriting.  
  
"We get to him before the FBI does. He doesn't get a phone call without us knowing."  
  
"Of course."  
  
Mason didn't bother to dismiss him. Cordell backed away to resume his usual mid-day duties, attending to Mason's lunch and the host of drugs that preceded it. The letter was expanded so it filled the entire screen again.  
  
In Florida, Will pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers and squeezed his eyes shut against an oncoming migraine.   
  
Thirty thousand feet in the air, Hannibal Lecter lifted the plastic shield on the plane's window with one finger and peered into the thick clouds above the Atlantic.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, so as it turns out season two of Hannibal has almost entirely Jossed my ideas for this fic, and I admit that my enthusiasm for the show as a whole really has really flagged. I hate leaving a WIP up without any sort of resolution, so here's what I have written of chapter two. I hope to get back to the story one day, but right now it isn't looking feasible.

With his collar turned up against the wind and against prying eyes, Will found his way to Jack Crawford's grave without using the evasive techniques years as a recluse and training as a homicide detective had given him. The grave, freshly tilled earth with a patch of green grass rolled out on top like a carpet arranged to hide a stain beneath it, was next to Bella Crawford's. _1969—2014._ Jack's headstone wasn't yet delivered, and the piles of bouquets placed around it nearly unseated the cheap plastic marker the funeral home set out as a stop-gap.  
  
He booked a flight to D.C. the night after receiving Alana's letter, canceled it late the next morning before he'd gotten a chance to pour a finger of whiskey into his morning coffee, and begrudgingly rebooked the ticket for a few days later. After the funeral, so he could pay his respects in person but avoid the press—and Alana. He hadn't seen Alana in years, and while she'd come to the hospital after Dolarhyde and knew firsthand what shape his face was in, he wasn't sure he could stand to see her without the dulling aid of a morphine drip.  
  
Will chuffed in the cold evening air, still reeling from the temperature difference. Every year he had to fix the coils in his shitty A/C unit to keep it from seizing up and baking him alive in his house, had to clean inches of dog hair from the filters. The coldest it ever ran was around seventy-two. Hot, humid hurricane season in Florida was fall down in the former swamp that was D.C., and Will could almost smell frost gathering in the air. The wool coat he wore made the back of his neck itch, and the keys to his rental car were a heavy weight in the right pocket.  
  
He felt foolish, standing there with his toes encroaching on Jack's final resting place. The wind that night was gentle, but it wiped out most other sounds, so it was just Will's own breath and whispering trees. Jack's voice didn't rise up from the grave to fill the silence in his mind.  
  
He came because he figured he owed Jack something, even if it wasn't showing up at the service to pay proper respect. Staring down at the new grass and tribute of flowers, Will realized how much of his motivation was a desire to say a final _fuck you_. Faced with his opportunity, with how much his voice might carry if he said it aloud, the urge deflated until he was ashamed by it and his own impotence. Will nudged a bouquet with his foot and tried to ignore the building ache in his jaw and cheek that the cold was quickly contributing to.  
  
Back at the motel, he had a stocked mini fridge and the number for a pizza place. The night held all _sorts_ of possibilities.  
  
"Mr. Graham?"  
  
Will's eyes winced shut for a furious second and his shoulders drew up. He didn't turn around. "No comment."  
  
There was a careful pause, and the voice with its mid-Atlantic accent said, "I'm not with the press, Mr. Graham."  
  
"FBI?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Then what the hell do you want?" The surety and calmness in the man's voice was niggling at him, and it was harder not to turn around and source it, pin it down. Will calculated how long it would take him to get back to the car if he went at a sprint.  
  
"My name is Cordell. I'm Mason Verger's assistant."  
  
The name sent a chill and a wave of revulsion up Will's spine. Grotesque memories threatened to crash over him like a wave. "Not interested." Will turned halfway, the coat's collar still flipped, and put his good side to Cordell. In Will's peripheral, he saw a pale, reedy middle aged man with an expression so serene it was almost vacant. "You know, you might want to consider a new line of work. Being a Verger crony doesn't seem to have very good job security."  
  
"Mr. Graham, Hannibal Lecter wrote you a letter of condolence after Jack Crawford's death."  
  
That old feeling, blood rushing in his ears, nearly rocked Will where he stood. It could have also been that he hadn't eaten since the plane.  
  
Cordell waited a few beats before continuing. "Mr. Verger will show you that letter on the condition that you come to the farm and speak with him directly."  
  
Grinding his teeth was a bad habit. It made pain spark and course through nerves in his face that most of the time had the decency to stay numb. But pain, like fear, was a tool. Will used it to weigh how much he wanted to read the letter against how much he didn't—how bad he knew it was going to be. He tried to draft a version in his head, found it lacking, redrafted it, and ended up with too many variations to accurately guess as to the actual letter's contents.  
  
Standing there in a Virginia cemetery, on what would have been his and Molly's five-year anniversary, Will blew out an aggravated breath and allowed the red tint of tunnel vision to occlude his good sense. "I'll follow in my car," he said tersely.  
  
"Very good," said Cordell.

\--  
  
Driving the winding road to the isolated Verger estate was too close to being lost for Will's comfort. He kept Cordell's taillights firmly in view, despite the heavy traffic that had all but gridlocked the interstate on the way. Now there was nothing for miles but drooping trees and that endless driveway. The crown jewel of Muskrat Farm—excepting, of course, the cattle roaming its hundreds of acres—the house's gothic beauty made Will feel like he'd stepped inside of a moralizing fairytale. Instead of the ornate metal _V_ wroughtonto the gates, Will imagined it said _BEWARE._  
  
He idled out front for a minute, even as Cordell waited for him near the steps. Will's hands were tight on the steering wheel until he forcibly moved them down and pulled the key out of the ignition. All he had to do was go in and read the letter, and he could walk out the doors before Verger made his pathetic pitch.  
  
Officially, detective inspector Renaldo Pazzi was not linked to Mason Verger, but it was no huge effort to figure it out. The gruesome theatrics of Pazzi's demise aside, the dead goons Lecter also left behind implied money and masterminding, and Pazzi was in short supply of both—but he had middle age and a gorgeous wife to incentivize him. Verger and his infamous reward were more than enough to tempt someone like Pazzi into going rogue, and now people gathered around the cobblestones underneath the Capponi library to take pictures of his blood in the cracks.  
  
He got out of the car and followed Cordell up the front steps on stiff feet. His instinct was to examine the combination of sleek modern furniture and family antiques that decorated the Verger home, its sterile hospital smell, but he kept his focus on the middle of Cordell's back.  
  
"Mr. Verger is through here," Cordell said as they stood at the beginning of a long hallway that gradually dimmed into near darkness. Will heard the burble of a fish tank, the tinny murmuring of a distant television. "I'll accompany you. I'll ask you not to touch him, nor any of his things. Health risks, you understand."  
  
That and Verger didn't want Will's grubby hands all over his nice stuff. Will screwed his mouth up in a sardonic smile, and Cordell didn't so much as blink at the way it pulled his face. "Got it."  
  
They approached the cocoon of Verger's bed, heavy canopy pulled back to display an interior decorator's best attempt at hospice-chic. The bed was raised so Verger in his taut, grimacing visage might look like a man sitting up to watch a game or read a newspaper. Reposed instead of confined. His bed looked nicer than any Will had ever slept in, cream sheets, dusky gray eiderdown with a matching skirt, mounds of pillows, but the cords and tubes that led to monitors mounted on the wall betrayed it.  
  
Will'd seen pictures, of course. From some of his later attempts at skin grafts, even, but nothing prepared him for the sight of Mason Verger's pouting, aristocratic face puckered like one big scar. A watery blue eye tracked Will as he came closer. His own face was impassive, but the thick knot in his cheek seemed to throb in uninvited sympathy.  
  
"Well, you look awful," Verger said. His voice used to be dynamic, pleasant even when he used his sneering drawl, and he retained a little of that. Enough to sound cheerful despite truncated consonants and hollow-sounding vowels.  
  
"Speak for yourself."  
  
"Oh, I do. How have you been, Will? Warm?"  
  
\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all for the foreseeable future, folks. After s2 finishes and I have some time to think about it, I may come back and tidy up the loose ends of this fic.

**Author's Note:**

> I can't promise how quickly updates will come, though I have already finished the first act of chapter one. I feel like Bryan is gonna Joss me re: Mason, so I'm treading lightly and waiting for spoilers.
> 
> (After drafting approximately forty-five summaries, TheLCM and I chose the one that amused us the most.)


End file.
